Breaking Routine
by Andromeda Writes
Summary: Cress makes a huge mistake at work. But maybe it's not so bad...


"**Then a spark from a star shooting too close, they both smiled, 'What a day to explode.'" – **Sara Bareilles, _Cassiopeia_

She too often felt like a star in the galaxy, millions of light years away from its nearest companion, wondering if it even _had _a companion.

But that was a silly thing to feel, because stars weren't sentient and they didn't care about how alone they were in the universe.

Cress, however, _did _care. And she never knew what to do about it.

Her hair flowed far behind her as she entered the federal building, swiping her wrist under an android's scanner and taking coffee from another android at a counter near the entrance. Her morning routine. Routines made everything easy.

Cress had only just hit 18, and the salary she'd been receiving for two years from being a top tier coder for the American government put her out on her own, in her own place with her own life, almost immediately after being kicked out of the foster care system. She'd spent most of her life on her own. Bouncing around from orphanage to orphanage and foster home to foster home did nothing more than cut her off from the world rather than cultivate her growth.

Cress was almost always alone, so she spent a lot of time with a netscreen – learning how to code and, ultimately, how to hack. She ended up getting hired by the American government at the age of 16 when they'd caught her in their servers. It took them an hour. Usually, hackers took mere minutes to detect and capture. But Cress was quick and she was clever. It would've been a mistake to send her to jail when, instead, she could work for them.

She took a sip of coffee and reeled back in disgust by how bitter it was. She was adding a packet of sugar to it before she heard her name. "Hey, Crescent." She turned and smiled to Rachel, her supervisor. Cress waved with her free hand as Rachel approached her. "I have a proposition for you."

"Let me hear it."

Rachel looked around quickly before looking back at Cress, "I need you to do something we don't usually do around here. There's a man by the name of Alexander Martin. He's been, uh, working with the Lunars and, given his track record, we have plenty of reason to believe it's not a good thing. We've discovered that he's a double agent. I will comm you the ID of his portscreen, and I need you to wipe all of the information on it, as well as all of the information on his ID, aside from his medical, personal, and familial history. Do you think you can handle it?"

It wasn't routine, and it would be a challenge, and that sparked a bit of excitement inside of her. "I can have it done in ten minutes," Cress replied excitedly.

Rachel smiled, "I know you can. As a reward, you'll get a bonus as well as a few days off."

"Consecutive days off?"

"Consecutive days off."

Cress nodded, her blue eyes widening, "I'll get right to it."

"Report back to me once you're finished," Rachel told her, and then she was gone.

Cress stole away to her small corner office, pulling out her port and immediately getting to work.

She sat back and watched as the files were removed from Port8.4, ID #0298696. She grinned in satisfaction when she glanced down at her personal port, containing the information Rachel at sent her. Almost immediately, dread set in.

She'd typed in the ID number wrong. It was 669, not 696. Her heart fell into her stomach as she went about trying to stop the process, but it was too late. Panicking, she switched numbers and finished the job for the real target, and then ran to Rachel's office.

Out of breath, she gripped the door jamb. Rachel glanced up at her in horror. "Crescent? What's wrong?"

"I-I-I messed up."

Calming down just enough to explain, Cress told her everything. Rachel massaged her temples and then reached for her port. "Well, that's certainly not good."

"Please don't fire me," Cress said, her voice hardly above a whisper and full of terror.

Rachel chuckled, "I won't under two conditions." Her gaze hardened, "First, you will restore all of the information that you can. Then, you will find the person whose information you deleted and you will apologize to them in person, in my office."

Cress nodded slowly, "Okay, okay. I can handle that."

Rachel grinned, "Good. Go get that information restored and I'll go about tracking down the port's owner."

* * *

><p>Carswell Thorne's first week as a citizen of New York City was not going very well.<p>

He'd been turned down not once, but three times already, and when he was trying to check his comms, he realized that all of his information had been wiped!

He groaned and started to head back to his hotel, calling it a day – though it was hardly noon, but not before he heard the familiar _ping _of his port.

Confusion filling his mind, he pulled it out again.

_**INFORMATION RESTORATION IN PROGRESS: 23%...48%...85%...**_

He sighed, hoping that meant that his day was starting to turn around.

As soon as it hit 100%, it pinged three more times.

The information that popped up indicated that he was being summoned to the NSA building, just down the street from where he was, a building away from the New World Trade Center that'd been built after the Fourth World War.

He was a bit afraid, not sure why his information had been wiped, restored, and now he was being asked to show at the National Security Agency for the American Republic. Normally, he'd run away from it, but he was kind of bored and there were very, very few things that could make the day worse.

He walked inside the building and there was a woman waiting next to one of the security androids, her arms crossed.

She greeted him as soon as he entered.

"Carswell Thorne," she said in a surprisingly deep voice. "Please, follow me."

She led him through security and to the elevators.

"What's this about?"

She said nothing.

"Am I in trouble?"

She glanced sideways at him for a half-second, "You have nothing to worry about, Mr. Thorne."

He was far more disconcerted by her words, but followed her like a dog as he was led into a nice office.

There was another, younger woman in there, trembling, her face red.

"Carswell Thorne," the first woman started, "this is Crescent Darnel. Crescent?"

The younger woman lifted her head slowly, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders. She had stark blue eyes and Thorne couldn't help but smile. She was, in every sense of the word, dazzling.

"I-uh-um," she stumbled across the words as they tumbled from her lips. "I'm not sure if you saw, but all of your information was unintentionally removed from your personal portscreen. I was only able to restore 20% of your overall files, and would like to formally apologize for it. I know that there is little I can do to make up for the potential losses." She kept her eyes downcast, afraid that if she looked into his beautiful cerulean eyes, she would certainly swoon to death. He was – stars – he was _handsome_. That was unexpected. "It was a terrible mistake on my part, but none of your information or files were downloaded to our servers and I promise it will not happen again."

Finally, she looked up at him.

He had his head cocked curiously to the side, a crooked grin on his face.

Rachel looked between them, "Is everything all right, Mr. Thorne?"

He didn't look at the woman, his focus on Cress only intensifying. "You can make it up to me by letting me take you out on the town sometime."

Cress's face filled with fear, her eyes darting to Rachel, clashing with her baffled expression.

"Wh-what?"

"You destroyed a lot of my stuff! In return, I think you should let me take you out on a date. No pressure, of course – I have faith that I could get over it regardless, if I really tried – but I promise you wouldn't regret it."

Cress's eyes shifted between Rachel and Thorne before she scrunched her shoulders up in resignation. Maybe it would be fun. Maybe she could feel a little less lonely, a little less like a distant star and more like a person, even if it ended up being a total bust. "I-I suppose. Sure."

Thorne smirked, "Great."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: How many more times am I gonna end a Cresswell fic with "can I take you out?" That's a great question. I'm sorry that I'm not more creative (/.\). **Fun Fact!** I started writing this over the summer – according to my computer, it was 4:35 AM. Sounds like something I'd do. I abandoned it until just now, wherein I saw the opportunity to kind of use it as a sort of, uh, backstory/prequel to a story I wrote for tlcshipweeks for the Plus Iko theme! I didn't even have to change much, though I'm super, super sorry if it sucks.

Also, readers, I have a question regarding the tlcsw fic. When I post it here, should I post it as a 2nd chapter for this fic, though they're loosely related, or as a separate story? They can both function on their own, so I'm reaching for the latter, I'd just like to know your takes on it! xo


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